What does the law say about speaking Spanish in the workplace?

Can Your Employer Prohibit You From Speaking Spanish at Your Job? Under California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) and federal law, it is illegal for an employer to discriminate against an employee based on his native language or manner of speech, such as accent, size of his vocabulary, and syntax.

Can a company tell you not to speak Spanish?

California law imposes strict limits on employers’ ability to demand that employees only speak English in the workplace. As a result, employees who are fired for speaking Spanish — or any other language — at work may have a legal claim against their employer.

Is it illegal to discriminate based on language?

Discrimination based on the language an individual speaks or doesn’t speak (or the fluency with which he or she speaks it) may not sound like one of the protected classes you’re familiar with, but it can be illegal. Essentially, language discrimination is a type of national origin discrimination.

What is discrimination in language?

Language discrimination occurs when a person is treated differently because of her native language or other characteristics of her language skills. For example, an employee may be experiencing language discrimination if the workplace has a “speak-English-only” policy but her primary language is one other than English.

How can you avoid language discrimination?

5 Best Practices to Avoid Discriminatory Language

1. Use people-first language. Using people-first language is one way to avoid derogatory language in job descriptions.
2. Avoid gender assumptions.
3. Use gender-inclusive language.
4. Use an augmented writing tool.
5. Create a “discriminatory language in the workplace policy”

Is it rude to speak a foreign language at work?

Regardless of why they’re doing it, the perception is that they’re doing it because they don’t want others to know what is being said. Speaking the non-peace-language* in the office is always rude**. It’s the equivalent of whispering in front of a third party, or passing notes in full view of a third party.

Why does language discrimination exist?

Quite often the language discrimination takes place because non-native speakers tend to have a different accent. Native speakers of the same language hardly notice their own distinctive accents when speaking a foreign language, but they can be quick to judge others who try to speak a foreign language.